


The Nightmare

by lambkt



Category: Lore Olympus (Webcomic)
Genre: Nightmare, Painting, art fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-27
Updated: 2020-01-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 09:34:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22438582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lambkt/pseuds/lambkt
Kudos: 18





	The Nightmare

_The Nightmare_  
_1781, Oil on Canvas_  
_Henry Fuseli_

The air retched from her throat in short gasps; the magenta hair that cascaded from her sensitive scalp, twisted angrily in gnarly mattes against the soft backdrop of her natural curls, pooled on the floor below her and shook in time with her ragged breathing. 

The pain in Persephone’s back was excruciating; her body bent sharply just below her ribcage in response to the hard edge of the cement slap she was pitched over without ceremony, comforted only by a layer of hay and a thin, wool blanket. Her arms hung loosely above her head, one crossed over her forehead and the other extended nearly straight so that her knuckles lightly grazed the icy stone floor, rattling a hard chill through her vertebrae down to the arch of her feet. 

She gasped again, the scream for help trapped in her throat, being dragged back down by the fear that grew inside her. For good reason, anyways. Besides her chest trembling in small, erratic rises and subsequent falls, her body was still and lifeless as the dead. Eyes wide and unblinking, she could only stare at the hard stone wall across from her, viewing the rest of the room from the little her peripheral vision allowed her. 

The room had an age to it that she couldn’t place. Pieces of the rock that lined the walls and ceiling created a film over the floor, in some places sitting in small piles as if they had been pushed out of the way. Seemingly out of place a wooden vanity sat against the wall, the only thing in the whole room void of dust and aggressive age. The mirror, unshattered, stood proud, allowing her to see only a sliver of the room behind her. She could see the reflection of her legs, stretched out before her on the bed and draped in the soft silk of the white nightgown she wore. It was long and thin, a plunging neckline that stopped in the center of her sternum. From her angle she could only see the way the fabric bunched over her breasts before the rest of her body disappeared over the platform and beyond the reflection that the mirror allowed her. She became painfully aware of the uncomfortable way the fabric had wrapped itself around her ankles, mimicking the feeling of heavy steel shackles keeping her anchored. She feared that they may be real.

The distant sound of scraping, reminiscent of nails on a chalkboard, had been just a faint ringing in her ears before and now began to draw closer. The dirt on the floor trembled, receding into the piles; hiding.

_Run._

A low growl came from behind her. Persephone begged her body to react, to do anything but remain limp, but it did nothing to answer her silent pleas. The growl came again, deeper and closer than before. From the edge of her vision she saw her hair sway. A new fear built up inside her; something more tangible because _something_ was here. 

Her curls parted, making way for long, sharp talons to peek through and brush through her long hair. The intimate gesture gave way to a hot, bubbling feeling of nausea in the pit of her stomach. The talons continued their movement, taking with them strands of hair that wedged themselves in the cracks and chips of the filthy, stained nails. Down and up again, every descending movement painfully ripping the hair from her scalp and raising goosebumps on the back of her neck.

The claws withdrew violently, taking with it a matte of her curls, which she could hear fall deftly to the ground in the sudden silence. She could feel its presence just behind her ear, its sticky, hot breath coating her skin like resin on a mastic tree, and just as smoky. She heard it retreat after a moment and she prayed. She prayed to every god mama told her of, the good and the evil, and every god her mama had kept secret from her that it was gone, that this assault would be the worst of it burned into her memory for all eternity.

But no, she could hear its limbs shuffle across the cold stone floor, draggling like leather over crushed glass, and further move the chipped stone into piles, recognizing it now as a trail.

_How long had it been here?_

It stayed out of her direct gaze, stalking in half circles around her to—what? The answer hung heavy in the hair, the anxiety of it pricking her skin like needles. 

She caught glimpses of it, just enough to tease her and scare her all the same. Its skin was the color of tar, sagging and cracked all over. Parts of it seemed to be slicked with oil, though it seemed impossible due to the dry-like texture. Its back was hunched and knotted so horribly that its face looked as if it were a fixture coming from its chest. Large growths had sprouted up all over its body, disfiguring it beyond any semblance of normal animal that Persephone had ever seen. 

It stepped into her line of sight, having paced further than it had in the moments past, almost as if it had gotten lost in a thought. Catching her eye it snarled, exposing a row of jagged, rotten teeth. Even from where she was the smell of decay hit her nose forcibly; dizzying her and painting black spots over her eyesight. 

Quickly it scurried out of her sight, half dragging a limp leg. The leg was missing a significant chunk from the area of the calf, the flesh oozing a dense, yellow-y goo, stuck with particles from the floor. After it disappeared, the moments stretched in a long, weighted silence interrupted only by Persephone’s still-ragged breathing. She filled the space with, again, more praying. 

She prayed the prayers would fill the space and shout for help for her, since her voice had abandoned her. She prayed the prayers would terrify the beast in their purity and desperation, then return to her in the form of an embrace so life-giving it gave her life enough to wiggle her toes. But the silence dragged on, as did her stillness, and instead threatened to suffocate her with its very presence. 

It was then that she felt the shuffle of the hay and the dip of the blanket to her right, completely out of her sight. 

It was coming for her.

Her breath halted altogether, effectively shoved down by the fear aflame in her every fiber. Without pause, claws pulled at her dress. The fabric screamed against their onslaught, threatening to tear. Under the delicate silk Persephone felt her skin break, ichor soaking into the thread as the fabric finally relented, tearing holes large enough for the talons to rake against her bare flesh, leaving angry marks in their wake. 

Persephone breathed a shaking sigh of relief as the claws retracted, though too soon because they were replaced by a heavy weight on her chest, the creature pushing the remaining air from her lungs as it perched on top of her, fat knees folded against its sagging chest. In her panic, her eyes dilated completely, the natural striking pink completely swallowed in black. It’s rough features contorted into a look of anger—absolute _insanity_ as it stared down at her, watching her suffocate, only visible in the cloudy, outer edges of her vision. Its eyes were huge and unsettling, set so deep in their sockets and cut so rigidly they could be stone, making the anger of its gaze all the more extreme.

A deep growl came from its chest, a noise that sent a fiery vibration through her cells and threatened to cook her from the inside out. Now, with every clear thought left in her hazy mind, she prayed it would. At least then it would end. 

The creature drooled from the corners of its snarl; the fluid dripping audibly onto her exposed sternum, over the hill of her collarbone and flowing along the length of her neck, crawling behind her ear before finally braiding itself into her hair, like a being of its own; possessed. 

From somewhere in the room she could hear a woman screaming, strangled and feral. She couldn’t tell where it was coming from, though it sounded close, like maybe it could be her, but her mouth was still shut firmly. The lack of oxygen in her lungs was horrendously painful, though the promise of some sort of end to all of this still seemed to loom far out of reach.

She prayed. Oh, she prayed for it to end. 

Persephone wasn’t sure when the screaming had stopped, or if it had even been real for that matter, but at some point she heard the heavy exhale of a large-sounding beast. The creature on top of her shifted and gnarled, finally removing its gaze from her paralized face.

In the mirror she could see it; glowing white eyes against a translucent, misty form. The giant head of a horse that disappeared somewhere into a cloud of lazily billowing black smoke. The darkness around it filled the room and seemed to amuse the creature atop her, a wicked grin playing over its disgusting features as its eyes fell back on Persephone.

The massive clobber of hooves echoed throughout the room as the horse began to stalk around her, its eyes seeming to rest on her even when its head was not turned in her direction. The horse looked like any shade she had ever encountered before, but the sinister smoke that encapsulated it held a weight fit only for the darkest corner of Tartarus. 

It stopped before her, finally, and lowered its head to meet her gaze directly. Its breath smelled of rotting underbrush in the throws of fall right before the first real frost had come to devour it. The heat of it was so intense it must have been melting her skin, because even though she couldn’t see it, it felt as if a hot iron hand had cupped her cheek. The pain only got more intense as it studied her face, a heavy pressure piercing her skin, slowly turning her bones to diamond. 

Above her, as she fell into the eyes of the horse and her vision faded to white, the creature leaned forward and pushed its leathery tongue through cracked lips. It licked from the base of her neck up to her earlobe, scratching and pulling at her skin like sandpaper. It laughed, loud and shrill; mocking her. 

It laughed, and laughed, and she _prayed_.


End file.
